


mourning for the living

by Splashattack



Series: Wilde Week 2020 [6]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 18-Month Time Gap (Rusty Quill Gaming), A Wilde Week 2020 (Rusty Quill Gaming), Angst, Friendship, Gen, Internal Conflict, Quarantine, no beta we die like I will when I have to get up in three hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27739606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splashattack/pseuds/Splashattack
Summary: There's nothing left to give, nothing left tobe, without the dead men caged beneath him.written for day six of wilde week.wilde needs his friends alright
Relationships: Commander James Barnes & Howard Carter & Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde, Commander James Barnes & Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming), Howard Carter & Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming), Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Series: Wilde Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029099
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: A Wilde Week 2020





	mourning for the living

**Author's Note:**

> day five: loyalty/ ~~betrayal~~ / ~~blood~~
> 
> cw for internal struggles, implied suicidal ideation if you squint

Zolf, Carter, and Barnes are dead‒that’s what Wilde keeps telling himself. It doesn’t matter that he can hear them laughing through the floor; it isn’t _them_ , not anymore.

If only he could bring himself to believe it.

They’re on the third day of quarantine. Not early enough to have any idea if they survived the last mission intact or not‒which means Wilde has to believe they didn’t. He’s good enough at pretending, but deep down he knows he’d be lost without the group of people currently held in the basement. They work well together, yes, but it’s more than that: Wilde isn’t sure where they would stand on the matter, but if friends were something one could have in this world, he’d consider them among his own.

He doesn’t know how he’d manage without them. He isn’t sure he could.

Time passes slowly when the quarantine cell is in use, Wilde has come to learn. It doesn’t matter how many papers he flips through, how many notes he takes, how many meals he skips and nights he works through. Nothing makes it go faster, and it’s agonizing.

It is in these moments that Wilde is truly able to think, to reflect. Once upon a time, so long ago, he might have appeared shallow, vain—and it wouldn't have been an inaccurate description. He almost wishes he could to back to that; it had to be better than the constantly nagging weight in his mind.

He comes to dread daily inspections, when the internal struggle of convincing himself they are lost is at its worse. He has to be prepared for the eventuality, though, has to be prepared to clean up the mess and continue on his own. It's so much easier to exist in this hell without ties, he tells himself, and it will be better for everyone involved if he would just _stop caring_. Too much of the world is lost and too few people can be trusted for emotions to further complicate matters.

So Wilde hardens his face to a mask of stone on the last step before he opens the trapdoor, and pretends he doesn't hear the voices of his dead friends quieting as he strides down the corridor. He tries not to look at their faces, ignores the concern he finds in their expressions when he inevitably fails, almost convinces himself that this is what he wants.

He can't remember when the line between _want_ and _convience_ was erased so wholly, but Wilde knows he is unrecognizable compared to the man who had first broken into Hamid's apartment.

His façade crumbles the second he closes the door—of course it does. He can't do this. He is not made to be on his own, does not know how to function without the anchors that his friends form. The split within him is all-encompassing, and the energy it takes to smother his ever-loyal optimist is more than he can spare. There's nothing left to give, nothing left to _be_ , without the dead men caged beneath him.


End file.
